


Jack's Demon Spawn Puppy

by pearlsapphiresnapdragon



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gytrash, Language, Puppies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-10-13
Packaged: 2017-12-18 02:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearlsapphiresnapdragon/pseuds/pearlsapphiresnapdragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack's out walking in the woods one night, minding his own business, when a gytrash puppy decides he's her mommy. (Two-shot, rated T for the second chapter and some bad words; starts before the movie; bonus chapters feature Bunny)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

A stray snowball whizzed by Jack’s ear. He turned to see which of the children had launched it. “Tom, that was awful! Liza’s way over there!” he said, pointing wildly to his left at the only girl who wasn’t hiding behind the fort he’d built them.

            Tom didn’t answer, of course. Instead he took aim and fired again, this time hitting Nelson square on the behind. Jack laughed raucously. “Good one, Tom. Now get him back, Nelson.”

            He did. The fight continued off and on all afternoon until they had to go in for supper. “That was fun, kiddos. We’ll do it again tomorrow.” He walked them home, then followed the road into the woods, a smile lingering on his face.

            The woods were quiet. Only the slightest breath of air rustled the needles of the evergreens, stretching up above the newly fallen blanket of snow covering the slumbering earth. Jack loved nights like this, especially after days like the one that had just ended. They made him feel…content. It was more than that, though. He felt satisfied, full, like he imagined Tom’s cat felt when Tom rubbed her tummy after a successful hunt.

             Jack liked cats, when they weren’t hissing at him because he smelled funny (apparently; in Jack’s opinion cats smelled a lot funnier than he possibly could). On the odd occasion when he’d thought about what it might be like to have a pet, he always imagined it to be a cat. As it turned out, fate had other plans.

            The night wore on, and Jack walked deeper and deeper into the woods, the Moon shining bright. He was the only traveler on the road, but that didn’t bother him. The peace of it was nice.

            That peace was shattered by a high, squeaky, demanding bark. Jack started and looked up ahead a few paces to the spot where it had originated. A pair of eyes gleamed gold at him out of an alert little black shape sitting imperiously under a tree. Another bark issued, trailing off into a really, really annoying howl.  “Look, scamp, you’re barely any bigger than my foot. Go bark at something that can’t crush you.”

            Another bark, this one challenging. Jack rolled his eyes, and the little scamp rushed him. He expected it to pass right through. To his surprise, he felt little needle teeth sink into his big toe. His eyes widened in pain. “Ow! You little shit!” He shook the puppy off and inspected the damage. There were teeth marks that stung, but otherwise he would live. Probably.

           The little shit barked at him again, this time all proud and excited. It was wiggling from nose to forked tail. Oh. Gytrash. No wonder. “What are you doing out here all by yourself, you little demon spawn? Where’s your mama?”

            It barked as if to say, “You’re my mama now. Duh.”

            “Oh no,” Jack said, backing away. “Do. Not. Follow. Me.” It waddled gleefully after him. “No! Bad dog! Bad! No!”

            He tried running, but it ran faster than him. He tried flying, but it flew faster than him too. Jack was stuck with a gytrash puppy.

***

The next day, Jack sat watching his new puppy romp around in the snow, idly stirring up flurries for her. She tried to pounce on one and landed on her chin a foot in front of the intended target. She wasn’t very coordinated yet, as evidenced by her frequent stumbles and flops.

            She needed a name. Hellion seemed fitting, but Hell was an awful nickname for anyone (and no, ‘little shit’ did not count as a horrible nickname because he only called her that in his head, unless she did something naughty). In the end he picked Jillian. Jack and Jill had a nice ring to it.

            Jill’s energy wasn’t quite limitless but close to. She ran in circles around him when he walked, launched ‘sneak’ attacks on him when he sat and hopped among the children when he played. Her favorite thing to do, though, when she wasn’t savaging pilfered socks, was chase things, particularly snowballs. Jack would throw them for her until she stumbled into his lap, finally tired enough to sleep.

            Though he never would have thought he’d want a companion, he found that he was happier with her around and also less prone to wallowing after some reminder of his outsider status hit him in the gut. “I’m glad you picked me, baby girl,” he said, stroking her soft fur while she rested.

***

Jill grew fast on a steady diet of snowballs and small animals. Before long she was about mid-calf height. He wondered how big she would get; he’d never seen an adult gytrash. Once grown, they were usually solitary, elusive animals.

            One afternoon the wind beckoned and a familiar itch started up under his skin. It was time to go somewhere else. “Jill,” he called, “Come here, babe.”

            She bounded out of the woods and into his arms. “That’s my girl,” he said, squatting next to her to rub her chest and shoulders. He noticed she had little gray feathers stuck in her teeth. Eww.

            “We’re going on an adventure today, Jill.” He picked her up and adjusted her weight until he had her secured in one arm. Then he raised his staff with the other and caught the wind.

           They went south and west for a time, passing over sea and mountains. At first Jill was restless against his chest, but he didn’t dare let her down, at least not until he got her more familiar with keeping pace with him when he was riding the wind. He made a mental note to practice with her over shorter distances.

            Finally the wind set them down in the middle of a bustling market that smelled of exotic spices. This town was much bigger than the last, and it showed in the thriving business of the city center. Jill sniffed the air eagerly, quivering with the desire to ravage the food stalls lining the street but unwilling to leave Jack’s side in an unfamiliar and potentially hostile environment. Jack chuckled.

            “You want some of that, girl?” he teased, pointing at some roasted meat on sticks. She whined plaintively. “Okay, okay you bottomless pit, we’ll get you some.” He approached the stall, Jill pressing close to his side. “Jeez, a few hundred miles and you turn into a big baby. What happened to my badass little huntress?” He put his staff in the sling he’d taken to wearing since Jill came along and opened his arms. She jumped up into them and leaned towards the meat longingly. A few more steps and she was close enough to dig in.

            The vendor gasped and choked out something in the local language when he saw his merchandise disappear into thin air. He stumbled away from the stall, shrieking about ‘evil spirits’ for the whole market to hear. It was absolute pandemonium as people fled, Jack laughing all the while and Jill none the wiser, enchanted as she was by the breathtaking feast before her.

            Emboldened by her success at the roasted meat stand, Jill leapt from one abandoned stall to the next inhaling everything in her path until she had no more room left in her stomach. “We’re going to have to put you on an exercise regimen now,” Jack said to her when she flounced down next to him in the street, fully sated and grinning toothily. “Come on, let’s find the kids in this town.”

***

It was a few nights later that she woke him up out of one of his occasional late winter naps, nosing him urgently and biting at his collar. “What? What’s wrong, Jill?” he mumbled. It was always hard waking up from these.

            Having gotten his attention, she ran to the window on the other side of the abandoned first-floor apartment they’d taken refuge in and looked back at him. When he didn’t follow, she ran to him, nosed him again and ran back to the window. “You want to go outside, huh? Okay,” he sighed. He went to the door, but she stayed by the window, making a barely audible, frustrated little noise. “Um. Okay. We’ll do this your way, if it means so much to you. You’re such a weirdo,” he said, climbing out the window into an alley.

            When he dropped down next to her, she took off, stopping at the mouth of the alley to look back at him like she had inside the apartment. In the orange light of the streetlamps, he could see her trembling violently. Alarm bells blared in his head and the last of sleep’s hold on him was broken; he’d never seen her like this before, even when she was surrounded by loud noises and strange sights and smells. He raised his staff and studied the shadows for danger, but there was nothing he could see.

            And then he smelled it. Sulfur. It was faint but growing closer, along with a hint of fire. Some buried instinct of his own kicked in and he bolted after her. She ran so fast her feet barely touched the ground, if at all. Jack had to fly to keep up with her. Gradually, though, she began to flag, until she could run no further.

            They stopped at the edge of a cliff, an old Moorish castle rising behind them and wet, vibrant land stretching out far below. There was no snow here; they were too far from the mountains.

            Jill curled up in his lap, still trembling but mostly from strain now. Jack petted her soothingly, as much for his own sake as for hers, and she buried her head in his abdomen. “What was that, baby girl?” Jack wondered out loud. If she knew, she didn’t say.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day they went south and east to the other end of the world. It would be a while yet before the southern hemisphere was ready for winter, which suited Jack just fine. It was a good time for recuperation. Besides, Jill was utterly enraptured by the autumn leaves blowing in the wind. She’d run and snap at them for hours on end and then pig out on whatever the townspeople were dumb enough to leave in plain sight (and sometimes less than plain sight).

            For his part, Jack lazed about, often leaning against trees and dozing or just lying in the grass looking up at the sky. When he felt like it he’d leave their base, a clearing just outside of town, and go prank people (a little patch of ice here, some grumpy-looking adults there, and presto! laughs for everyone). As Jill matured, she spent more time lying in the sun with her head on his knee than she had as a puppy, though she still pranced around and made a fool out of herself most of the time.

            By the time the first chill of winter took hold, he figured Jill was a good six months old, assuming she’d claimed him when she was about two months. She was lean and muscular, with powerful shoulders that were just past his knees now when she stood. And if her webbed paws were any indicator, she was going to be humongous when she finished growing. Whenever that was.

            She started wanting to spend the nights out by the road.

            “No,” he said firmly when she whined and pointed in the direction of the road with her snout. She looked at him through sullen eyes, then turned her gaze out to where the road lay a couple miles over, shoulders taut and forehead wrinkled.

            He fell asleep. When he woke a few hours later, she was gone. Heart hammering, he sprang to his feet. “Jill! Come here, girl!” She didn’t come. That little shit, how dare she leave the camp when he’d told her not to in no uncertain terms? What if something happened to her out there? He still remembered the smell of fire and sulfur rolling into the alley like a doom-laced fog.

            He flew to the road and then deep into the woods. Sure enough, there she was, but she wasn’t alone. She was leading a rental car full of glassy-eyed tourists, her own eyes glowing like miniature suns. She walked right past him, showing no hint of recognition. The scene was so eerie a chill shot down his spine.

            He trailed behind the car, reluctant to try to shake her out of the trance she was in. He’d heard nasty stories about angry black spirit dogs during his pub-crawling phase. In her current state she could snap, even at him.

            They came to the edge of the town, and she stepped off to the side. The car passed her and her eyes dimmed to their normal dog-eyes-at-night sheen. Sniffing the air, her ears perked up. She turned and wagged her tail excitedly at him.

            “Hey, girl,” he said quietly when she bounded up to him, demanding petting. He’d sort of half-forgotten she was a gytrash. At any rate, he’d forgotten what that entailed. Tonight she had guided lost tourists to their destination, but what if tomorrow she led some sap into a bog or off a cliff?

            “I don’t know,” he said out loud, looking up at the Moon.

 ***

She didn’t go out the next night, nor the one after that. Her instinct to guide travelers seemed to have been satisfied, at least for the time being. Maybe it was a little like the itch he got to wander and make fun. He found himself hoping, however vainly, that she wouldn’t do it again.

            A week later, she did. He only knew because of the trail of paw prints ending at the road he found the next morning. He looked over to where she lay stretched out, her coal black fur contrasting sharply with the pearly white of the season’s first snow. It was a beautiful sight. “What did you do last night, baby girl?” he murmured.

            From that night on he didn’t sleep. It was winter again anyway, time to skate and sled and build forts and throw snowballs. And keep an eye on his pet gytrash. He started to recognize the signals she gave when someone was lost around the town. She always knew, even in the daytime, and she’d go help them. Gradually he relaxed. Maybe the stories about psychotic black dogs with split personalities were wrong. Maybe all she did was help lost people.

            He learned otherwise one morning in mid-winter. He was hanging out in a café patio while Jill roughhoused good-naturedly with a pack of strays (a behavior that almost gave him a heart attack the first few times, until he realized that a) she wasn’t actually going to eat them and b) only the dogs could see her, unless she chose otherwise, which she only seemed to in her spiritual guide dog capacity).

           A pair of office workers were seated at the table behind him, chatting about local events. He smirked when they mentioned the bizarre ice sculpture of a kilted man baring his rear at city hall that had turned up over night. The conversation turned to other strange matters, and Jack’s attention drifted, jolting back when he realized they were talking about Jill.

            “Janet from the office said she saw it herself the other night, out by one o’ Mitchell’s fields. A great black beast with eyes like glowing rubies.”

Jack’s heart sank. He’d gotten complacent about watching Jill over the past few nights, preferring to spend them setting up surprises for the townspeople.

            “You know as well as I do that’s a pile of rubbish, Tanner,” the other man said.

            “Look, you can’t deny the facts, mate. A dozen people have seen it haunting the roads, and now it’s been seen in the very place they found that Gat Wosley’s body. We’ve got a ruddy hellhound on our hands,” argued Tanner.

            “More like an angel of justice,” the other man said darkly, “according to Gat Wosley’s woman. This world is better off without that crazy, drunken bastard.”

            “Well, I can’t argue with that.”

            They went on to talk the subject of Gat Wosley’s sins and apparently accidental demise to death. Jack was relieved to hear that the body didn’t have any bite marks, debunking Tanner’s theory that a ‘hellhound’ had ripped his throat out. The other man was more rational, pointing out that the police were still investigating and had no reason to suspect anything other than alcohol poisoning.

            Jack didn’t know what to think. He was almost certain Jill had led the smashed-out-of-his-mind Gat Wosley to Mitchell’s field, well away from anyone who could have saved him. The thought of her taking the life of a human being, even such a pathetic excuse for one, filled him with dread.

           But he loved her. He loved her more than anyone else in the world. And he understood that this was part of her calling, the purpose that gave meaning to her existence and provided a foundation for whatever sense of self she had. He of all people had to respect that. And that’s how he came to the grim conclusion that he could tolerate her indirectly murdering evil bastards.

           He prayed she never harmed an innocent, even while admitting to himself that he would still love her if she did.

 ***

Seasons passed, and Jill grew into a lean, majestic adult gytrash. The graceful way she loped, even on the wind, was a far cry from the clumsy hopping of just 18 months ago. In fact watching her move was a source of genuine pleasure to Jack.

           “Who’s my big, beautiful little girl? You are! You are!” he said, rubbing her belly. She arched her back and grunted happily. A second later he looked around to make sure nothing that could see him was anywhere near them. How embarrassing would it be for that overgrown petting zoo escapee from Down Under to catch him talking in that stupid ‘pet’ voice? On the bright side, Jill would _love_ to meet the Easter Kangaroo, Jack thought with a diabolical grin.

           They were in a big city in the southwestern part of the world this year. He’d come on a devilish whim, knowing it hadn’t snowed here in almost a century. That was far too long in Jack’s opinion. It was time he reminded the people of this city of the joys of true winter.

           “All right, girl. Jack’s got work to do. Wanna come?” he said, standing. She barked cheerfully, muscles flexed and ready to spring into the air. “Let’s go, then. Up, Jill!”

           Together they catapulted into the overcast sky, far above the sprawl of the city. Clouds gathered, ready for Jack’s command. They were already heavy with water. Jack summoned more and dropped the temperature. “And now for a little wind,” he said. A hellish gust answered him.

           For a moment, the pregnant clouds hung tense and ponderous. He swung his staff down and they burst open, unleashing great swirls of wind and snow. He crossed his arms, admiring his work. “Very nice.” Jill must have appreciated it too. She was howling her lungs out along with the wind. He wondered what the people below must think of _that_.

           Having finished the job, all that remained was to enjoy the fruits of his labor. They descended back into the city streets. He made a few giant snowflakes for Jill to chase on the way down. Once they alighted, he started to think he might have overdone it a bit. All throughout the streets, there were abandoned cars. People woefully underdressed for a blizzard hurried into buildings seeking shelter, many taking spills along the way in their ridiculous ‘winter’ boots. He helped a few of them to get inside (not because he felt guilty or anything, _of course_ , but because they needed to live long enough to enjoy the wonderful gift he’d prepared for them).

           Soon the streets were empty. Jack knew that would change once everyone got used to the cold, but for now it bothered him. “Come on, girl. Let’s see if we can’t find some brave souls to play with.”

           No luck. They prowled the city until it was inky dark. A lot of the city’s streetlights were out. “Guess I really did overdo it. Lame.” He kicked a tire on one of the abandoned cars.

           A howl shattered the night and Jill stopped, every inch of her body on alert. It wasn’t the stillness that came over her when a traveler called. It was the stillness of one alpha scenting another. A low rumble issued from deep in her chest. Out of the darkness ahead came the smell of sulfur and fire and the baleful smolder of two red eyes.

           Jack stood rooted to the ground, until Jill took a slow, predatory step forward. “Jill, _no_! We have to get out of here!”

           She didn’t seem to hear him. He wrapped his arms around her neck and heaved backwards, but she wouldn’t budge. She shook him off like a mere insect, her own eyes beginning to gleam red.

           The thing was close enough now that he could see it was another spirit dog. But not a gytrash. This was a true hellhound. Snow melted before its foul breath as it approached, stopping a dozen feet away to size them up.

           In all the years he’d walked the Earth, he’d never been as afraid as he was for Jill in that moment. Before she could rush the hellhound, he blasted it with ice. The thing opened its mouth and fire poured out, turning Jack’s ice and all the snow thirty feet around into a wall of steam.

           “Jill, no!” he cried when he felt her leave his side. The horrifying sound of snarls and snapping filled the air, and the ground rumbled under his bare feet. He banished the steam and Jill and the hellhound were revealed. The beast had her pinned, but Jill snapped at his throat and he lost his leverage when he was forced to evade. She rolled and sprang at his hind legs before darting away.

           The two spirit dogs faced each other. Jack thought they would attack again, but the dynamic had shifted. Jill’s eyes were glowing more brilliantly than ever, and the hellhound seemed unable to move. She brushed past him and he was compelled to follow. Jack followed too.

           They went far out of the city, so far that the Moon wasn’t obscured by clouds anymore. They came to the edge of a quiet lake and Jill waded in. The hellhound followed her, but Jack did not. He sensed that this was as far as he could go. He looked up at the Moon and then back at his baby girl. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said softly.

           The two spirit dogs swam to the spot where the Moon was reflected. It was there that Jill turned back. The hellhound did not. Moonlight gathered around him, until the surrounding night was lit brighter than day. Jack had to close his eyes it was so strong.

           When he felt the light on his eyelids subside, he opened them again. Jill emerged from the lake in front of him. The hellhound was gone.

           As soon as she was on dry land, she shook water all over him. Jack didn’t care. He wrapped his arms around her. “You little shit! Why in the name of all that is good and sane did you do that? You had me so worried! Don’t you ever, _ever_ do anything like that EVER again.”

           She shoved him playfully with her head, as if to say, “I’m fine. Stop being such a mom.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> The chapters that I upload from here on out are bonus chapters. I have a couple already written. After that, I may post further, more or less self-contained chapters from time to time, as inspiration strikes. I hope you like them :-)


	3. Bonus Chapter 1

It was late winter again and Jack and Jill were back in Burgess, Jack on a lonely rooftop and Jill off hunting. Or maybe haunting. Or making a fool of herself again. She’d been decidedly frisky recently, and insufferably whiny, like there was something she desperately wanted, but all the usual suspects (socks, snowballs, meat, etc.) didn’t seem to do the trick. It wasn’t a gytrash thing either, he didn’t think; these signs were different from those. Besides, GPS was fairly common in this country. He figured the best thing he could do was just let her run and hunt and frolic as she pleased until she worked off whatever restless energy had possessed her.

            Meanwhile, Jack was thinking. The night was quiet, but there was a sort of taut promise to it. Or maybe menace. It put Jack in a contemplative mood, hence the thinking. Not one of his favorite activities. Whenever he did it too much, he started to feel all over again like that outsider who would never matter to anyone. It made him wonder…

           “If there’s something I’m doing wrong, can you, can you just tell me what it is?” he said to the Moon. “Because I've tried everything, and no one ever sees me. You put me here, the least you can do is tell me, tell me why.”

            Jack waited a beat for a response. When it didn’t come he sighed and jumped up onto a telephone pole, stepping out onto the wires. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the glimmer of golden sand. “Right on time, Sandman,” he said to himself. He ran to reach out a hand to it, a faint smile on his face. He liked dream sand. His smile deepened; Jill liked dream sand too. He could just see her chasing little golden birds and such. As soon as she snapped one up, she’d drop like a sack of potatoes and tiny pairs of socks would bloom over her head. And then Jack would laugh at her (definitely _not_ with her), cause, really, _socks?_

            He was about to go look for her when a black flash of movement stopped him. “Whoa,” said Jack. Judging by the odd sparkle it couldn’t have been Jill. He took off after it. The thing led him to the mouth of an alley. A crash sounded and he tensed.

            “Hello, mate,” came a familiar, accented voice from behind him.

             Jack turned. Was that…? It was. He really hoped Jill hadn’t managed to catch any dreams yet.

            “Been a long time. Blizzard of ‘68, I believe? Easter Sunday, wasn't it?”

An anticipatory snicker almost slipped past his lips, but Jack managed to play it cool. He had to keep the kangaroo talking until Jill got here (assuming she was close enough to smell him and also not dreaming of socks).  “Bunny! You're not still mad about that...are you?”

            “Yes,” he said tightly. “But this is about something else.”

           He opened his mouth again, just as Jill bounded out of the alley behind Jack, her tail wagging manically.

           “ _What_ is that?” Bunny yelped. He looked mildly alarmed, meaning he was about ready to bolt.

           Without having to bend down, Jack put a hand between Jill’s shoulders and she stilled, but for the wagging tail. She sniffed obnoxiously, like she could suck Bunny towards her if she sniffed deep enough but otherwise stayed close to Jack. It reminded him of that time in Barcelona when she met street food vendors for the first time. He laughed.

           “This is my dog, Jill. Jill, meet the Easter Bunny,” Jack said mischievously. “You like bunnies, don’t you, girl?”

           Jill whined. Yes, yes, she did.

           “Don’t go giving her ideas!”

           “Aw, don’t be such a chicken, or she might really eat you. Birds are her favorite,” he teased, smirking. And then to Jill he said firmly, “Jill, no! No eating the Easter Bunny!”

           Her tail stopped wagging, and Jack swore her face fell into a mournful little pout reminiscent of a grounded teenager on Friday night. He patted her comfortingly. “So what’s this about?”

           Bunny opened his mouth to respond and was cut off for the second time by Jill. She stiffened, barked once in warning and sprang after a flicker of black in the alley behind him. Of course Bunny didn’t know about the flicker behind him. “Crikey!” he yelled, high-tailing it to Jack’s side of the alley mouth and hiding behind him. “Control your beast, Frost!”

           But Jack was already running after Jill. If she didn’t like this thing, it had to be bad. A shudder of déjà vu ran down his spine as he thought of that night in another alleyway, outside an abandoned apartment. He jumped into the air and searched the shadows for his impossible little  dog (she might be humongous, but she was still his baby girl) and her prey. Oh, was she in for a talking to.

           He spotted them on a dingy rooftop a few streets over. The flicker turned out to be an inky black horse creature that glittered in the orange glow of a streetlight, tendrils of something that looked like a perverted version of dream sand snaking out from it. “What in the world…?”

           The horse creature reared and whinnied, the sound a harsh echo of a banshee’s cry. Jill rumbled low in her chest as a lead-in to her eardrum-shattering now-I’m-really-pissed bark and her eyes began to smolder. In the next breath, she and the creature charged at each other. Jill’s teeth sank into its throat, but the creature dissolved into a tangle of threads that re-formed behind her. Jill whirled and locked blazing ember eyes on the horse. It froze under the gytrash spell. She barked at it again, louder than thunder, and the thing exploded into a rain of glittery black sand.

           “What have I told you about chasing things that might be able to kick your ass, young lady?” said Jack when she pranced over, wiggling proudly. Her ears wilted. And then perked up again when she caught the scent of overgrown rabbit.

           Bunny approached warily, coming just close enough to be heard. He pointed at the sand littering the roof. “That right there is what we wanted to talk to you about, mate.”

           “We?”

           Two yetis slunk out of the shadows, one carrying a Jack-sized sack. Uh-oh. “I don’t suppose I can opt out of this little chat?”

           Flanked by big, hairy back-up of his own, the rotten git had the audacity to grin. “Not on your life, Frost.”

           Jack sighed. “Jill, stay! Watch out for the kids while I get press-ganged into ‘chatting’ with these Neanderthals.”

           The last thing he saw before the sack closed over him was Jill tentatively sniffing one of the yetis. Her tail wagged twice, and the yeti patted her on the head. Her tail wagged more enthusiastically. Little traitor.


	4. Bonus Chapter 2

It was pretty awesome to be believed in, Jack reflected. Light years better than the alternative. Ever since that business with Pitch, he took a few minutes most every day to bask in it, in the feeling of _mattering_ , finally. Of knowing that there were people out there that cared about him, Jack Frost, and that what he did was important to them and countless others. As a direct result his dedication to making fun was approaching obsession. Even Jill was having trouble keeping up with him.

            So that’s why it was probably a good thing spring was in full bloom. As much as he might want to spend the whole year zealously spreading snowballs and fun times to all four corners of the globe, Jack needed a rest. _And what better place to wallow in springtime than Bunny’s Warren?_ Jack thought with a gleam in his eye.

            He stood up from his rooftop perch overlooking the city and whistled. A few minutes later, Jill loped lazily up to him. “All that hanging around restaurants is catching up to you, isn’t it, babe?” he said, patting her swollen tummy absently. He wondered if he should be concerned. Honestly it had never occurred to him that Jill could actually get fat, since her metabolism and activity level had both been fantastically high up until these last few weeks. In fact, if he didn’t know gytrashes typically were on the skeletal side, he would have been concerned that she was too thin. Now that the pendulum was swinging the other way, he briefly considered asking Jamie to take her to a vet. Probably not a good idea.

            Maybe it was just an effect of getting older. Jill was a little over two years now, probably fully mature (physically). Come to think of it, that could account for the uptick in napping and other lazy behaviors he’d noticed. He resolved to keep an eye on her for now. “Jill, you remember Bunny, right?” Her ears rose. “I think we ought to pay him a visit. Seeing as he and I are both Guardians and all.”

***

 _“What is that beast doing in my Warren?”_ Bunny yelped.

            Jill barked cheerfully in greeting. By now she knew ‘beast’ meant her.

            “We just stopped by to say hello. And maybe stay awhile, since this Guardian stuff has really got me tired out,” Jack answered. He found himself a comfy-looking patch of ground and flopped down on his back, grinning. For her part, Jill sniffed around cautiously. In the middle of her investigation, she sneezed on a flower bunch and rainbow mist sprayed out, dusting her face pink and gold. She sprang away from it, shaking her head and sneezing. Jack laughed. He was so, so glad they’d come to the Warren.

            Her resumed investigation brought her closer and closer to Bunny. Judging from the shifty, I’m-doing-something-I’m-not-supposed-to-and-I-hope-Jack-doesn’t-see way she carried herself, Jill thought she was being sneaky about it. Jack laughed again as Bunny inched closer to him. “You know, she’s really not going to eat you. Seeing as we’re teammates now, you ought to try to make nice with my dog.”

            “That’s not a dog, it’s a bloody bear!”

            Jill gave him her biggest, most heartbroken pout, the one perfected in her never-ending quest to get Jack to make small frost animals for her to chase. How the kangaroo could resist that, Jack had no idea, but resist he did. “Crafty blighter…better…away…googies, or…” he muttered darkly as he hopped to the other side of the Warren.

            Dark muttering became the soundtrack to his life, as Jack and Jill made themselves at home, much to Bunny’s displeasure. He kept slipping on patches of ice that had absolutely no business being at the heart of spring, or else almost hopping face-first into the Beast (who was always indecently happy to see him, with her fang-y grins and disingenuously pitiable whines). What had E. Aster Bunnymund ever done to deserve having Jack Frost and his behemoth inflicted on him? Nothing, that’s what. Because there was no crime heinous enough to warrant such a punishment.

            But he couldn’t bring himself to kick the pair of arses out of his domain. There was just something… _not_ endearing, but rather… _insidious_ about them. Frost with his snow angel sleeping face and the Beast with her continuous efforts to ingratiate herself (via puppy-dog eyes and nauseatingly excessive tail-wagging). For some reason she seemed fixated on gaining Bunny’s affection. Probably as the first step in a clever plan to lower his guard so she could eat him.

            He got used to always knowing where they were, in case Frost tried to ambush him with a wall of snow (which had happened twice already) or the Beast tried to ambush him with her teeth (which was only a matter of time). So when Frost came to him saying the Beast had disappeared, he knew where she was. It was the same place she’d been infesting on and off since they arrived, whenever the ice princess was asleep and unavailable for a game of scare-the-living-daylights-out-of-the-Easter-Bunny: a large den formed by a dried up creek bed and what many, many years ago had been a bridge but was now essentially a planter. Snapdragons in luscious coral and crimson and canary and carrot towered over the faded red railing of the once-bridge as they approached.

            The Beast was panting like she’d just won the Iditarod, and every so often she’d get up, paw the ground in a circle, then lay back down and fuss. Bunny’s world turned on its head and blew a raspberry at him. This could not be happening. He was going to have to help the vicious little monster; there was no way Frost would know how to handle this.

            “Jill, what’s wrong, girl?” said clueless ice princess cluelessly.

            Bunny looked up to where he knew the sky lay, somewhere high above. Really, just what horrible crime against nature had he committed in a past life for this to be his fate?

            “Step aside, sleeping beauty. You’re about to be a grandfather.”

            The half-disbelieving, utterly floored look that crawled over Jack’s face was priceless.

***

“Is she okay? Are they okay?” Jack asked anxiously for the 63rd time since the whole ordeal started five hours prior. Bunny suppressed the urge to wring his neck.

            “Shh! You’ll wake her!” he whisper-shouted. After everything the poor dear had been through, now that she was finally able to sleep she deserved a good rest. Bunny forcibly herded Jack away from the path he’d worn into the ground in front of the den. They went down to a nearby pond that had once been fed by the defunct creek, where Bunny rinsed off his paws. “Four of them are strong. The little one…all we can do is hope.”

            Jack’s eyes were sad, but a small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth on the last word. “Then it’s a good thing we’re here, of all places.”

            Bunny grunted. Damn right, it was. He shuddered to think what might have become of the Beast and her litter of future ankle-biters if princess over here had had to birth them.

            At length, they went back to what would forever after be known as Jill’s den to keep an eye on the new mom and her coal-black rats. She woke immediately when she felt them draw near, her eyes scanning the coming twilight suspiciously. Jack sat down beside her. A happy little sigh escaped her before she laid her head in his lap and promptly fell back to sleep. Jack stroked her fur tenderly, settling a hand on her shoulder.

            The puppies, all five licked clean and nursing eagerly, were so tiny next to their mother. Looking at the smallest one, Jack was glad all over again that they’d come to the Warren.

            “Thanks, Bunny,” he said softly.

            “My pleasure, mate,” Bunny replied. At this point he was only slightly surprised to find that the words rang true. He settled down opposite Jack and watched the Beast with her family, unable to shake the feeling that he was now part of it. And yet, deep down, he was still fairly certain she would eat him if it wasn’t against the rules.

            He would have been more than content to go on pondering the paradoxical sentiments, but of course Frost had to go and open his mouth. “What I don’t understand is, how did this happen?”

            Bunny turned mortified ears on him. “I am _not_ going to explain the mechanics of reproduction in the animal kingdom to you, princess.”

            Jack flushed almost imperceptibly under his natural pallor. He was flustered enough that the nickname didn’t register. “Th-that’s not what I meant!” he sputtered. “I mean, she’s so young! She’s still a baby!”

            Bunny pointed at one of the pups. “Baby gytrash,” he said. Pause. He pointed at Jill. “Mama gytrash.”

            “And I didn’t see any daddy gytrashes hanging around either,” he continued, as if Bunny hadn’t spoken. Although the presence of a gytrash daddy-to-be would explain the friskiness a while back…Jack had an irrational impulse to acquire a shotgun with which he could defend his baby girl’s honor in the future. But that was a tad extreme. Maybe he could build her a tower instead.

          “Well, they don’t exactly announce themselves with a jolly right ‘ _ho ho ho!_ ’ everywhere. Bluster isn’t their style.”

            “No one told Jill that,” Jack smiled.

            At the sound of her name, Jill’s tail twitched. They thought she would go on sleeping, but instead she raised her head and shifted her position so that she was sitting partway up, pressed into Jack’s side. Her puppies squealed as they were jostled but quieted when she re-settled. One of them started to crawl away from the others. Bunny picked him up gently, Jill watching like a mama bear, and deposited him back near the lunch table. She licked the puppy reflexively before licking Bunny’s paw in turn. _Sneaky little blighter,_ Bunny thought fondly. He patted her face and she nuzzled into the touch.


	5. Bonus Chapter 3

Jack ran a hand over Jill's side and she curled her paws luxuriantly, not even bothering to open her eyes. The heap of puppies wriggled and squealed. That's pretty much all they did these days, but Bunny assured him that as they got older they'd get more entertaining. Remembering those first months with Jill, Jack didn't doubt it.

           The Pooka in question hopped over for his turn with the new family. Released from unofficial (and completely unnecessary, according to the very curmudgeon who started the trend) babysitter duty, Jack rolled out of the den and stretched, staff in hand. "I think I'll go up topside for a while. Watch the kids, honey bunny," he said, mischief alight in his eyes.

           Bunny's whiskers twitched threateningly. "I'll show you honey bunny, you little - "

           Jack flailed, mock aghast. "Not in front of the kids, you potty mouth!"

           Bunny's eyes started bugging out, so Jack decided now was the appropriate time to get the hell out of there.

           "Cheeky little ice punk," Bunny grumbled after him. He trailed off into less and less complimentary epithets.

***

A week later the pups began to open their eyes. Now that they could see a bit, their fumbling around gained some measure of purpose and before long they started playing rudimentary games of pull each other’s ears. The littlest one, Hope, as Bunny and Jack had taken to calling her, turned out to be a champion ear-puller, eliciting the loudest and most frequent protests from her brothers and sisters.

            It was also at about this point that they began to be able to differentiate the pups not only by their sizes but also by their personalities. Naturally names followed.

            “I say we call the big lazy one Rolly,” proposed Jack.

           “Absolutely not, princess,” said Bunny. “He’s going to grow up to be a monster. He needs a good, strong name, something that inspires terror.”

            “Well, what do you suggest, cottontail?”

            Bunny absently rubbed at his chin, the way those manly men with just the right amount of stubble do when they’re thinking. “Thunder.”

            Remembering the lungs Jill had on her, and the ruckus she could raise when riled, Jack had to agree that was pretty much perfect. “My turn! This one’s Daisy,” he pronounced, stroking the next-smallest, after Hope. She was the sweet one in the family, the one who never pulled ears or tails or pounced on anybody.

            “What kind of a name is Daisy for a gytrash? Have you seen her mother? That’s what she’s going to look like when she’s an adult. All the other gytrashes are going to laugh at her,” said a scandalized Bunny.

            “You got to name Thunder, I get to name Daisy,” said Jack. He stuck out his tongue. And then dodged a faceful of flowers.

            “Then I get to name this little gal Lightning,” said Bunny, indicating the biggest of the girls, the noisiest of the litter.

            “I wanted to name her Snowflake!”

            “Too bad. She’s Lightning now, princess,” Bunny said smugly.

            Jack death-glared him. “Fine. Then this guy’s Snowflake.”

            Bunny’s mouth fell open, aghast. “You can’t possibly do that to the poor little bloke!”

            “Why not? It’s a perfectly good name,” Jack retorted. “And fair’s fair, you got to name two, so I get to name two.”

            “I am not going to call him that.”

            “Well, I am.”

            “We’ll just have to see whose name he likes better then, won’t we?”

            “Fine!” said Jack, crossing his arms.

            “Fine!” said Bunny, hopping away.

***

Jack took a moment to revel in the silence. A chorus of squeaky howls rent the air, followed by a garbled cry. Moment over. Jack opened his eyes just as Bunny crested the hill he happened to be sitting on. And no, he wasn’t up here hiding from a certain rambunctious pack of pint-sized gytrashes.

            “Frost! Call off your ankle-biters!”

            “They’re your ankle-biters too!”

            Bunny spluttered, puppies hanging off of his fur at the elbows, tail and, of course, ankles. “They ruddy well are _not_!”

            Jack sighed. “Come here, guys,” he said, accepting his fate. The wave of black released Bunny and swept over their ‘grandfather’ like a blanket of needle-toothed doom.

            The puppies were everywhere, barking and biting and licking at him playfully. “Okay, okay, I love you guys, too,” he said. “Hey, how about we play a game?”

            The effect the word ‘game’ had on the pack was immediate and profound. They all relinquished the various bits of Jack’s clothing they were trying to make off with and sat up at attention, ears perked and little brows furrowed. Jack conjured half a dozen snowballs, aimed, and launched them far, far away. The pack raced after them.

            “Where is their mother?” he muttered.

            “Avoiding her offspring, I expect,” Bunny answered, sitting next to him. “It’s weaning time.”

            Jack peered at him out the corner of his eye. “You mean she’s throwing us to those little wolves of hers?”

            Bunny’s whiskers twitched humorously. “Seems like.”

            “Huh,” Jack said. That Jill was a smart one… “Hey, Bunny, buddy, you know, it _is_ winter up on the surface, so – ”

            “So it is, Jacky boy,” Bunny said, his ears twitching deviously. “Why don’t you take those hoolig – I mean, delightful little angels, up for some fun?”

            “Uh, that’s not exactly what I had in mind,” said Jack.

            Bunny crossed his arms and _loomed_ over him. “Oh really?”

            Bunny was a good loomer. _Oh hell,_ w _hy not?_ thought Jack. “You know what, I think I will.”

***

Through some kind of gytrash ESP voodoo (or, you know, coincidence), Jill pranced up to Jack and the puppies just as they reached the tunnels that led to the surface. As one, the puppies dashed over to their mother, overjoyed. Jill licked and nuzzled them, until Thunder decided he wanted a snack. With a grumpy bark, Jill shook them all off and trotted the rest of the way up to Jack.

            “There you are, mama,” said Jack, hugging her. Jill pressed her whole upper body into Jack and licked his chin. “Gross, Jill cooties,” he said. Unfazed, Jill rubbed her face against his cheek. Jack melted. “That’s my girl,” he said, smiling and running his hands up and down her chest and shoulders. He scratched her chin before finally straightening, one hand resting on her shoulder.

            “Alright, guys, let’s get going,” he said to the puppies. Hope let go of Daisy’s leg, Lightning rattled off one last I’ll-get-you-later bark at Snowflake, and Thunder rolled to his feet with a leisurely stretch.

            Jack chose one of the southern hemisphere tunnels and they came out the end of it a short distance away from a small village way up in the mountains of Chile. Snow lay thick on the ground outside the tunnel mouth. The puppies sniffed at it, Daisy sticking close to their mom and Jack. The other four, Hope at the forefront, put tentative paws into the fluffy white powder. Thunder stuck his whole face in and nosed gobs of it aside, trying to make sense of this stuff that smelled like snowballs but didn’t fly.

            Jack chuckled and started out towards the village, Jill at his side. The pack ranged out behind them, quickly becoming accustomed to the chill and depth of the snow. Pretty soon they rolled and tumbled happily around Jack and Jill’s feet. Twice Jack almost stepped on a tail. The third time, he actually did. In typical puppy fashion, Lighting protested shrilly, proclaiming to all the world that it hurt so much her tail would surely fall off. Stowing his staff in its sling, Jack bent to scoop her up out of the snow. “Drama queen,” he said, cradling her fondly. He carried her the rest of the way to the village.

            They found a group of kids hanging around in the main village square. To the puppies, the revelation that there were other Jack-shaped giants in the world was a Big Deal. They reacted with varying degrees of joy and astonishment. Little Hope was the first to recover from the shock, letting loose a challenging bark reminiscent of the night her mother inserted herself into Jack’s existence. She led Thunder in a charge against the wool coat sporting ‘giants.’ They passed right through the kids and landed on their faces in a snow drift, while Daisy sniffed the kids’ shoes delicately.

            Laughing, Jack reached for his staff. Only to find it gone. In a panic, he whipped around searching for it. Movement from the corner of his eye revealed Snowflake and Lightning playing tug of war with it. “You little shits! Drop the stick this instant!” he said firmly.

            The two troublemakers paused to regard him appraisingly. Their tails wagged once each. Oh no. Jack took a step towards them. The tails wagged faster just before they took off like a pair of shooting stars. Jack ran after them, Jill and the rest of her brats howling gleefully as they joined in the chase.

            Thinking vengeful thoughts that he would never actually act on, most of which involved saying happy, enticing words like ‘snowballs’ and ‘game’ and ‘meat’ and then following up with a resounding, extremely satisfying ‘no!’ Jack put on a burst of speed and dove wildly with his arms outstretched. His fingers brushed the staff, reached desperately – and then it was gone again and he was lying on his stomach spitting out snow as the little monsters halted for the sole purpose of grinning back at him around mouthfuls of his staff, their tails waving triumphantly like little black, scaly victory flags.

 

As the puppies got older, they started to go off by themselves. Every so often Jack or Bunny would count noses and come up one or two short. Sometimes they would all be gone. Jill was always missing too.

            “Where do you suppose they go?” Jack asked Bunny one day when he couldn’t find hide nor hair of the gytrash pack.

            Bunny sat for a while, considering how best to explain this. He had a pretty good idea of what was going on, but princess probably wouldn’t like the sound of it. Not one for beating around the bush, he decided on the direct approach. “They’re growing up, mate. She’s teaching them how to hunt and survive on their own.”

            “On their own? Why would they need to survive on their own?” Jack asked, voice rising defensively.

            “Gytrashes aren’t social animals. You know that,” Bunny said gently.

            Jack did know that, but he didn’t like to think about his family scattering to the four winds. “But Jill’s not a loner,” he protested.

            Bunny rolled his eyes. “The Beast is an anomaly. Real gytrashes don’t go around picking fights with anything that moves and making friends with Guardians. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised she’s got a little wolf in her. Or rhino.”

            Frowning, Jack folded in on himself, wrapping his arms around his knees and tucking his chin.

            “Hey, kid, don’t take it so hard,” said Bunny. “This is just how nature works. Babies grow up and make their own way.”

***

It was late afternoon. Her brothers and sisters roughhoused behind her with Mama occasionally joining in the fun. Hope sat apart, her gaze locked on the tunnels. There was something out there, calling to her, needing her, but apprehension kept her frozen here.

            Behind her, Mama stood up and her brothers and sisters whined almost in unison. Mama ignored them, nudging Hope affectionately on the shoulder. Hope looked up at Mama then back at the tunnels. Mama nudged her again, this time a little harder, in encouragement. Hope shuffled forward hesitantly. Mama followed.

            Her apprehension morphed into urgency as soon as she stepped out of the other side of the tunnel. The call was like a cable running between her heart and some Other and it drew her on through the night-dark woods, her paws light and swift over the leaf litter as the trees rushed by in a blur. She pulled up short in a clearing with a weathered bed frame bleached silver in the moonlight at its center. A glitter stirred the blackness underneath it, and a pair of malevolent eyes glowered out at her.

             The creature snorted balefully as it emerged from the dark under the bed, a herd of its fellows ranging around Hope and her mama. For a moment Hope was terrified, sure that these things would tear them apart. She wanted to run away from this place, but a thought that was not her own insisted that she’d never make it even one step.

            Hope whimpered and looked up at her mama. Mama’s eyes were glowing with outrage, every line of her body tight and rippling with power. Just as the creatures started to rush them, Mama barked and the woods echoed with the sound. The force of her anger threw the creatures back. They struggled to their feet. This time Hope added her voice when Mama barked, so loud that the trees trembled and shuddered and the creatures burst into clouds of black dust, to be swept away by the wind.

            The woods were utterly still then. Hope looked up at her mama again, and Mama leaned down to lick her tenderly before nosing her towards the center of the clearing. Sensing no more of the nightmare creatures, Hope trotted the rest of the way to the overturned bed and stood at the edge of the dark hole revealed by its absence. Whatever lay at the other end of her heart’s cable waited for her at the bottom. She looked back at her mama, but she was already gone.

            She found him sitting at the base of a great black sphere, shoulders hunched as he stared at nothing. His head turned slowly at her approach but he was too weak to do more than narrow his eyes at her in a feeble attempt at menacing. His mouth moved and strange sounds came out, like the ones that Uncle Bunny and Grandpa Jack spent _soooooooo_ much time making at each other. Hope ignored them and crawled into his lap. She saw his jaw go slack in astonishment right before she burrowed her head in his stomach, settling in for a well-deserved nap.

***

Pitch dragged his eyes away from the floor at the sound of tiny, padding feet coming toward him. He stared at the thing, incredulous. It was a puppy. There was a _puppy_ in his lair. He glared at it and said, slowly, “You should leave while you can, cute vermin, before I regain my strength.”

            Rather than run for its life, as any sane creature would do, the puppy eagerly closed the distance between them and climbed into his lap. Pitch’s mouth dropped open when it snuggled possessively into his abdomen. He was so thoroughly confounded that for a moment he couldn’t gather the faculties necessary to dispose of the mad little dog thing. A moment was all it took for Pitch to notice how _nice_ the warmth of its body felt, and how really very _small_ and _vulnerable_ it was.

            Oh, well. He could get rid of it tomorrow. Surely he’d be feeling more villainous in the morning.


	6. Bonus Chapter 4

Pitch slept as he had not since the Nightmares drove him back under the earth. He dreamt of things strange and whimsical, and in the dreams he soared and spiraled and laughed all the while; not once did the malformed, demented visions of the past months ensnare him. He tried to hold onto the dreams as waking awareness stole over him, but soon both the dreams and the intent dissipated.

            When he opened his eyes, it was to find the impish fiend on its stomach with paws outstretched and chin flush to the ground, pouting at him. Pitch slowly righted himself and it sprang to its feet. “Begone,” he said in as sepulchral a tone as he could muster. The puppy wriggled excitedly. Apparently it was not afraid of the boogeyman. “What are you afraid of?” he murmured.

            _That you won’t love me like I already love you,_ was the answer written in its eyes.

            Unnerved, Pitch looked away. Perhaps if he ignored it the runt would leave on its own.

           He rose effortfully, hollow inside and aching in his joints. He felt old, worn out and completely inconsequential. And lost. How could he be back to square one, _again_ , after centuries of patience and careful planning? With no particular objective in mind, Pitch took a few steps forward, away from the shafts of light that managed to steal down into the heart of his lair. The puppy followed him into the shadows. Pitch pretended it wasn’t there.

           Before long, the creature began to whine at him. The whines echoed up staircases and over bridges before escalating into utterly miserable howls, the duration and intensity of which finally overcame Pitch’s considerable reserve of malice. “Arrrgh! What do you want from me, foul beastling?!”

            The puppy whined again and rubbed its head into the hem of Pitch’s coat. Crossing his arms, Pitch glowered bemusedly down at it and tried to think of anything a small animal might need, anything that might make it stop emitting that horrid noise. The first thing that came to mind was nourishment. “Are you hungry?” Pitch took the answering shift in posture from dejected to alert as a yes. “I have nothing for you, beastling. Run along and forage or something,” he said, waving dismissively towards the surface.

            After ten more minutes of being followed around his lair by incessant groveling while he was _trying_ to pace listlessly, Pitch finally cracked. “Alright! I’ll get you something to eat if you will cease making that insufferable racket and leave me in peace.”

            Puppy in tow, Pitch stalked to one of the tunnels leading aboveground. At the other end was a cave that opened onto a pebble beach, dark under a clouded night sky. Behind it rose a mountain sparkling with the lights of a picturesque Amalfi Coast town. “Come, beastling. There’s sure to be food over this way,” he said. And then shook his head at the absurdity of talking to an animal that could neither understand nor respond to his words. Clearly he’d been alone with the Nightmares for far too long.

            Far too long.

            Grimly suppressing a shudder, Pitch melted into the shadow of the mountain and glided up to the town proper. He was not at all surprised to see the puppy prancing along on thin air, easily keeping pace with him. Damn. There went any chance of giving it the slip.

            To Pitch’s horror, the puppy immediately ran for a garbage can and dove in. “Beastling! Get out of that filth this instant!” The puppy stuck its head up. Pitch pointed authoritatively at a spot on the ground before him. “Here, right now!”

            Reluctantly, the puppy climbed out of the garbage can and planted itself in the indicated spot. “Good, beastling. Now follow me,” said Pitch.

            They wound up at the back entrance of a packed restaurant. While the puppy waited outside under stern orders not to move, Pitch inspected the kitchen. Yes, this would do. He grabbed a plate and piled it high with chicken and sausage, leaving a trail of gasps and profanity in his wake. Back outside, he set the plate down in front of the puppy and watched with arms crossed as it tucked in joyfully, completely absorbed. Which gave Pitch an idea.

            He stepped back softly, away from the restaurant’s lights, letting the shadows swallow him whole. He emerged in front of a row of shops, all closed for the night, at the base of the mountain and began to make his way towards the shore. Halfway there, an image of the beastling finishing her plate and looking up to find him gone played out in his mind’s eye. Pitch waved away the thought like a pesky gnat. But then he remembered the look of utter devotion in her eyes, the one he’d seen when he read her fears. Oh, bother.

            Turning sharply, Pitch stalked back up the mountain to reappear before the puppy. When she finished eating, he said, “Listen closely, beastling. If you wish to accompany me, you must learn obedience. You will speak only when spoken to, do what you are told, and otherwise stay out of my way. Understood?”

           The puppy barked cheerily and Pitch decided to take it as affirmation. Satisfied, he looked on her consideringly. “Hecate is your name now, beastling.”

 ***

Pitch stood before the belief-ridden globe, fists hanging clenched at his sides. The lights glared back stinging his eyes and his pride as they mocked him. For now he was too weak to initiate another direct conflict with the Guardians, but in time…and perhaps with some help. There were other spirits in the dark places who might be called upon to aid him, some weak enough to serve his purposes. He’d have to be careful though. Others, once raised, were a great deal less predictable. Perhaps he could start with the wisps or the goblins. No, not the goblins. Surely rallying them would rouse their King and no good would come –

            A squeaky bark interrupted his machinating. “Not now, Hecate. I’m busy.” She barked again, this time following up by grabbing a mouthful of his coat and tugging hard. Pitch narrowed his eyes at her. Her eyes sparkled as she tugged again. “What? What is it that you need?”

            Hecate responded by backing up, gathering herself low and springing at him, teeth clamping onto his sleeve. Pitch’s eyes widened and he shook his puppy-loaded arm bemusedly. “You want to eat…me?”

            Hecate dropped to the ground with a derisive snort then continued her assault. When she didn’t, in fact, attempt to eat him, it dawned on Pitch that she must not be hungry. No, this was something entirely different, something far more ominous, something that would stretch his tolerance to the breaking point: his puppy wanted to play, and she wasn’t going to leave him alone with his thoughts until she got her way. Pitch shook his head darkly. Since when did he think of the little nuisance as his puppy? With an expansive, put-upon sigh, he glanced around the lair for a suitable toy. Unsurprisingly, he had no such thing. Pitch sighed again. “Follow me, beastling. We’re going to the surface.”

            This time they emerged in the middle of a park. At that precise moment a wayward ball sailed conveniently over the chain link fence surrounding a nearby tennis court. Ecstatic, Hecate shot after it. Pitch couldn’t help but smirk as he watched her try to get her tiny mouth around it. She growled as he pried the ball away from her, but the sound cut off abruptly when he raised it high above his head and threw, snickering at her rapt little face as he did. Perhaps this playing thing wouldn’t be so bad.

            The morning passed quickly (a little too quickly, but Pitch wasn’t about to admit that, even to himself) and before he knew it, he was gathering up his tuckered out puppy and a number of tennis balls astounded park-goers had been too spooked to retrieve. Back in his lair, he collapsed at the foot of the globe, exhausted. It was a good kind of exhausted, though, not the infirm lethargy he’d suffered through with the Nightmares.

            With the last dregs of consciousness, Pitch felt Hecate snuggle up to him. Then he fell asleep with a faint smile curving his lips.

 ***

Months later, Pitch and Hecate were out on one of their morning walks when her tail began to wag frenetically and she bounded off into a wild thicket. At first Pitch thought she must have scented a rabbit or a particularly interesting piece of ground and would be back momentarily, but instead of popping back out of the bushes, she disappeared completely. Heaving yet another deep sigh, Pitch hurried after her. Evidently it was time to invest in a leash.

            Pitch was not at all pleased to discover a tunnel in the middle of the thicket. And unfortunately, there was indeed a stench of rabbit wafting out of it. Joy. If only Hecate were older…but no, he’d have to handle the furry nutter himself. The maniac better not lay a hand on Pitch’s puppy or he’d be eating that absurd boomerang of his.

            Pitch burst out of the other end of the tunnel, a scythe cast from writhing shadow materializing in his hand. “Step away from her, Bunnymund!” he thundered, brandishing the scythe.

            Aghast, Bunny looked up at the intruder. “ _Pitch?_ What in the five hells are you doing in my Warren, and what do you want with little Hope?”

            Pitch wrinkled his nose. “I want nothing to do with your odious hope, Bunnymund. I’m here for my puppy.”

           Bunny’s whiskers twitched. Then a vehement string of profanity tumbled out of his mouth, ending with, “Frost! Get your arse over here!”

            The arse in question was already on his way, tailing a very excited pack of gytrash puppies and a rather large adult gytrash. Hecate rushed forward to greet the newcomers with sniffs and licks and happy squeals. Putting two and two together, Pitch crossed his arms. “I gather this isn’t the first time they’ve met.”

            “ _Pitch?_ ” exclaimed Frost.

            “Really, there’s no need to be so surprised. It’s not like you killed me or anything. Just left me to the Nightmares,” he said, deadly soft.

            Frost bristled. “Hey, don’t try to pin that on us. Who spawned those things in the first place, huh?”

            “Jack,” warned Bunny.

            Sensing the tension, Hecate left her siblings to stand by Pitch’s side.

            “So she’s been with you?”

            Pitch turned to the (ostensibly) more mature of the pair. “Yes. She was born here?”

            Bunny nodded.

           Silence stretched, then hardened.  “You know this makes no difference. We are still enemies, you and I,” Pitch said.

           “Then you know we can’t let you take her,” said Frost, the grip on his staff shifting.

           “You will not separate us, Frost,” Pitch growled.

           “Simmer down, you two, unless you want to have an all-out brawl in front of the kids,” Bunny snapped. Then, to Frost, “Hope’s clearly made her choice, unfortunate though it is. Simmer. Down.”

           “Her name is Hecate. And we’re leaving now.”

           “Wait,” said Bunny. He knelt down to pat Hecate affectionately. “You’re always welcome here, sweetheart.”

           As they made their way back up the tunnel, Hecate kept glancing behind. Pitch frowned. “Go, if you must.”

           She went, and as he watched her a familiar bitterness gnawed at his insides. He turned and straightened, walking slowly towards the surface. A few minutes later the patter of little feet reached his ears. It was his puppy, trotting cheerfully towards him, having bid her other family farewell. She leaped into the air and Pitch opened his arms to catch her, the bitterness instantly dispelled and a warmth he wasn’t used to blooming in its place.

 ***

**AN:** Thank you for reading! I’m sorry I kept you waiting this long.

I know you all are probably curious about where the rest of the puppies end up. I see them all going out and doing gytrash-y things but always coming back to the Warren every so often, so basically they’re Bunny’s pack of occasional pains in the butt XD

As for more bonus chapters, I don’t think I’ll be uploading any for quite a while. I’ve had trouble getting ideas into words lately, so I’m focusing more on reading and real life than writing.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> I may occasionally post bonus chapters, whenever inspiration strikes.


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